3 ms·

Sadly, the article and anything else I can find with cursory google search leaves out an real specs or capabilities. The article just talks about design and on

Sadly, the article and anything else I can find with cursory google search leaves out an real specs or capabilities. The article just talks about design and only briefly mentions capabilities. The Soviets did have computers and did have a semiconductor industry. It was a bit behind the west but not terribly so. For example the Intel 8080 was launched in 1974 and The Soviets were able to fab clones starting in 1979.

buescher 5y ago
Five years was an eternity back then. Motorola launched the 68000 (32 bit registers and 16 bit data bus) in 1979. The Intel 8086 was a year old. The first-generation Apple II, Commodore PET, and Radio Shack TRS-80 were two years old.
- thereddaikon 5y ago
  It was and it wasn't. On the consumer level it wasn't that big of a deal. 8bit 8080, Z80 and 6502 based machines were being sold right up to the end of the 80's. Even though 16 and then 32bit cpus were introduced surprisingly early. 386's and equivalents were considered high end in 1990-91. That had more to do with cost than it did the advance of tech. But it did mean that competitors had a chance to catch up and get into the market before they were blown away. In the case of professional workstations and up, midrange, big iron etc the difference was felt far more. This was especially true in military tech where NATO forces we able to become fully digital sooner than the Warsaw pact.
  - buescher 5y ago
    The 386 was still kind of expensive in 1990-1991 but it was not particularly high end. The high end was the 486, introduced in 1989. The 386 had gone into volume production in 1986, so in 1991 it was five years old. I wouldn't even see a 1986-era Compaq 386 until 1988, when it was already kind of dreary next to a Mac II. By 1991 non-enthusiasts in the USA who "needed a computer" would buy a 386SX with Windows 3.1. Competing with Apple and "Wintel" - there wasn't much. Enthusiast computers like the Atari ST and Commmodore Amiga and, in the UK, the Archimedes, targeted a sort of odd market of folks who would really have liked a nice workstation or big box Mac but couldn't afford one. They didn't sell many. There really wasn't anybody who "caught up" by introducing an 8-bit after the early eighties - maybe Amstrad in Europe? They pivoted to PC clones, didn't they?
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      I don't think you give the Amiga in particular enough credit. It wasn't really sold as a workstation, in particular the 500. It was sold for gaming and home use and was way better at that than anything else of the day. Including Mac and PC. At least in the Netherlands they were wildly popular among home users and not oddball at all. I bought one even though I had a PC because it was so much better for games. It also had a pre-emptive multitasking OS in ROM which other platforms got only many years later. Like the Mac I'm the early 2000s.

buescher 5y ago

Five years was an eternity back then. Motorola launched the 68000 (32 bit registers and 16 bit data bus) in 1979. The Intel 8086 was a year old. The first-generation Apple II, Commodore PET, and Radio Shack TRS-80 were two years old.

thereddaikon 5y ago
It was and it wasn't. On the consumer level it wasn't that big of a deal. 8bit 8080, Z80 and 6502 based machines were being sold right up to the end of the 80's. Even though 16 and then 32bit cpus were introduced surprisingly early. 386's and equivalents were considered high end in 1990-91. That had more to do with cost than it did the advance of tech. But it did mean that competitors had a chance to catch up and get into the market before they were blown away. In the case of professional workstations and up, midrange, big iron etc the difference was felt far more. This was especially true in military tech where NATO forces we able to become fully digital sooner than the Warsaw pact.
- buescher 5y ago
  The 386 was still kind of expensive in 1990-1991 but it was not particularly high end. The high end was the 486, introduced in 1989. The 386 had gone into volume production in 1986, so in 1991 it was five years old. I wouldn't even see a 1986-era Compaq 386 until 1988, when it was already kind of dreary next to a Mac II. By 1991 non-enthusiasts in the USA who "needed a computer" would buy a 386SX with Windows 3.1. Competing with Apple and "Wintel" - there wasn't much. Enthusiast computers like the Atari ST and Commmodore Amiga and, in the UK, the Archimedes, targeted a sort of odd market of folks who would really have liked a nice workstation or big box Mac but couldn't afford one. They didn't sell many. There really wasn't anybody who "caught up" by introducing an 8-bit after the early eighties - maybe Amstrad in Europe? They pivoted to PC clones, didn't they?
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    I don't think you give the Amiga in particular enough credit. It wasn't really sold as a workstation, in particular the 500. It was sold for gaming and home use and was way better at that than anything else of the day. Including Mac and PC. At least in the Netherlands they were wildly popular among home users and not oddball at all. I bought one even though I had a PC because it was so much better for games. It also had a pre-emptive multitasking OS in ROM which other platforms got only many years later. Like the Mac I'm the early 2000s.